Catholics in Chicago

Archdiocese book traces the church's historical influence on the city

October 24, 2006|By Patrick T. Reardon, Tribune staff reporter

Mayor Richard J. Daley, father of Chicago's present chief executive, wore his Catholicism on his sleeve. Every morning, the man known as the Boss attended mass at St. Peter's Church on Madison Street before heading a block north to his 5th floor office in City Hall.

The first Europeans to record a visit to the place that became Chicago were Roman Catholics -- Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit priest, and Louis Joliet.

So was the first permanent settler, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who built a log cabin near the mouth of the Chicago River around 1784. And so was Catherine O'Leary, the Irish widow who owned the barn where the Great Chicago Fire started in 1871.

Although never much more than a third of the city's population, Catholics and their church have been instrumental in the shaping of Chicago -- from the patchwork quilt of ethnic neighborhoods, to a skyline punctuated by steeples, to the societal changes occurring because of the flood of new immigrants now arriving from Mexico and Europe.

And that's why "The Archdiocese of Chicago: A Journey of Faith," a new book written by historian Edward R. Kantowicz and self-published by the archdiocese, is an important addition to Chicago's history.

Far from taking a rose-colored-glasses view of the past, Kantowicz forthrightly deals with such negative themes as the ethnic conflicts within the church, the clergy sex abuse scandal and, most significantly, Catholic racism in the 1950s and 1960s.

Although noting the work of some church members who supported integration, Kantowicz writes that, "too often, Catholic priests and laity refused to welcome dark-skinned newcomers to their parishes." Indeed, white flight to the suburbs "exposed moral hypocrisy underneath the smugness of Chicago Catholicism at mid-century," he states.

Institutions that commission corporate histories rarely use terms such as "moral hypocrisy" about themselves. But Cardinal Francis George, who went through the manuscript page by page with Kantowicz, laughs when asked if he thought of deleting some of the historian's critical words.

"The church," he says, "is about conversion and forgiveness and new life, and, if everything is hunky-dory, there is no point in calling people to change, is there? . . . [The church] is made up of sinners, and, God knows, our sins are evident enough."

That's a point George underlines in his introduction: "Our history is a story of faith, courage and charity; it is also a story of sin and betrayal of the Lord."

The 344-page coffee-table book, marketed primarily to Catholics, is divided into two sections: the first third recounts the archdiocesan history, illustrated with scores of archival photos; and the remaining two-thirds provide color photos and thumbnail sketches of each of its 366 parishes.

For anyone interested in Chicago's past, regardless of religious affiliation, the book holds much of interest. Kantowicz writes that, in the early history of the city, Catholic nuns were doing the sort of settlement work later made famous by Jane Addams. He quotes historian Suellen Hoy, who said that the sisters ministered "to the most despised of Chicago's immigrant poor, while the founders of Hull House were still only girls themselves."

In the mid-1840s, William Quarter, the first bishop of the still new city, agreed to allow separate churches for immigrants from different national groups, setting the stage for the development, for good and ill, of the city as a mosaic of tightly organized, often insular ethnic neighborhoods. The local parish, Kantowicz writes, "was far more than a place of worship; it was also a community center."

The book is not without its flaws, including more than its share of misspellings and minor factual stumbles.

Its discussion of the priest sex abuse scandal highlights the finding by a national Catholic commission that most of the molestations occurred in the 1970s, peaking in 1980. But, in what Kantowicz acknowledges was an oversight, it doesn't include the number of Chicago priests (at least 55, according to the archdiocese) against whom allegations of misconduct were substantiated.

The huge waves of Catholic immigrants who arrived in East Coast cities in the second half of the 19th Century found themselves considered outsiders. That, however, wasn't the case in Chicago where Catholics were an influential segment of the population from the beginning.

"The fact is, we belong," George says. "We were here first."

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Church treasures

In "A Journey of Faith," the new history of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, each of the 366 parishes lists a "treasure" with special meaning to parishioners. Here are 10:

Holy Angels, 607 E. Oakwood Blvd., Chicago -- A large mural depicting Scripture scenes featuring angels, painted by Rev. Engelbert Mveng, a Jesuit priest who, a few years after finishing the work, was murdered while doing missionary work in Cameroon.